By Samantha Radocchia, co-founder and CMO of ChronicledThe most difficult part of building a company is bringing people together as a team.Traditionally, creating a collaborative, supportive team is viewed as something that can’t be forced. It’s widely recognized as a process that takes time and effort from everyone involved.But, as startup culture has grown and the role of founders has become ever more glamorized, a new method of company creation has popped up-venture production studios. Essentially, these studios bring together “founders” to start a company for a specific purpose.Think of it as manufacturing a company.While it’s possible to find success through that system, it’s also a very inorganic and impersonal way to build a company-and isn’t very good at fostering authentic (...)

What Goes Into The Mind Of Startup Founders?Idea is powerful but not until it becomes actionable and get the validation by real user.We are living in the era where the word impossible seems to be challenged by young dare-devils. For them every problem seems to be like an opportunity to make an impact. They are not limited by their thoughts, they want to fight, they want to try, failures are no more stopping them, they have all the courage to stand up and face and grow up.That is the spirit which is shaping the current world of today, fostering new energy and giving birth to new kind of innovation. I have been fortunate enough to meet many startup founders and also being a startup founder myself, this topic very close to my heart. It very relevant in the current dynamics to understand (...)

A typical eCommerce marketplace has witnessed its fair share of transitions and evolutions. With all these alterations underway — this domain has gone on to become one of the most lucrative sectors of the 21st Century.So, what’s next on the plate for a traditional eCommerce business?The answer is relatively simple and straight-forward — BLOCKCHAIN.Blockchain has been enjoying a good run in the financial industry for quite some time now. According to a recent Statista Report, the global blockchain market is expected to see a surge of more than 400% by 2021.As blockchain is inching closer to the real sectors of the economy — An increasing number of people have now started talking about other possible use-cases of blockchain apart from finance, especially in the most lucrative domain of them all — (...)

Building a Business on Slack — $80k/mo with a Slack-first AppSlack is more than just a chat app; it’s an ecosystem to build a solid business on.While Slack prepares for the IPO, its App Ecosystem keeps evolving becoming a place to build a business on. Standuply, a Slack-first App, reached $80k in revenue in February 2019.I’m Alex Kistenev, CEO and co-founder of Standuply and in charge of marketing. This post is about my experience of growing a Slack App to $80k per month.The product competitionIf you search for ‘standup’ in the Slack App Directory, you’ll find Standuply at the 1st place with 30 other competing apps left behind. Here’s how we did that.Laser focusThere are Slack apps made by web development studios. They felt the pain, had resources and eventually built the initial product. But it (...)

In the era of Disruptive Tech, I still don’t feel like I belongFor those coming of age beside Angelfire, our pioneering contributions don’t matter that much on paperI feel like Paramore gets my feels, and that is the most ‘old millennial’ thing I’ve ever said in my life.We were hopelessly dorky and found refuge in embedded chatrooms, websites with enough animated gifs to send any modern-day web designer into a mental breakdown, and Neopets coding.The internet was new, weird, and full of P2P file-sharing software that took centuries to snag a song you liked…that was hopefully not mislabeled as something Green Day made, instead of Harvey Danger.We grew up pushing boundaries, spoofing Neopets login pages, running MMORPG private servers off of our Windows 95 machines, and exploring the rogue (...)

It’s a near-universal pain point for freelancers: the unpredictable cash flow cycle. It’s common to wait 30-plus days to be paid after completing a job, and sometimes, it’s just too long.Qwil, says its co-founder and CEO, Johnny Reinsch, was born out of his own experience as an independent contractor with a high-value client that paid him late. “I was about to overdraw my bank account the day before my payment was due,” he says. “I tracked down the finance person and got the money just in time, but I was like, ‘why does it have to work this way?’”As a self-described “recovering M&A lawyer” and a former exec at bitcoin wallet Xapo, he knew that it didn’t.Enter Qwil — a fintech company with a mission to “empower freelancers with instant, convenient access to credit.” For businesses, it’s a way to (...)

Don’t forget Step ZeroI’m a physicist who works at a YC #startup. The biggest mistake I’ve ever made is that I spent too much time as a physicist. The second biggest mistake I’ve ever made is that I spent too much time working on the wrong startup idea.After I stopped being a physicist and started a startup, I realized I could get more done faster through a startup. After I stopped working on the first startup idea and started working on the second one, I realized I could get more done faster through the second idea.Over the years, I’ve bumped into this pattern a lot. So much so that I gave it a name: I call it forgetting Step Zero.Step ZeroHere’s what I mean by Step Zero. When you have a task, the first thing you do to start working on it what you’d call Step One. But there’s a step before Step (...)

These entrepreneurs are nailing category design.By Christopher Lochhead, podcaster, best selling author, and 3X Silicon Valley CMOMost of us can’t go a single hour without reaching for our iPhones.But nobody even knew why they needed an iPhone until Steve Jobs told them. And he did it by creating a brand-new category: a touch-enabled “smartphone” that can connects to the internet and doubles as a media player.Rather than simply solving the problem of, “What should a phone be capable of?” Jobs redesigned the problem by showing us, then conditioning us, to equate smartphones with his product. He owned this niche. Today, it’s still the standard against which all other smartphones are measured — with over 1 billion iPhones sold and counting.To build lasting brands and products, legendary companies (...)

Jameson Toole’s investors for his first company, Wherehouse Inc., must have been surprised to see him again only three months later with a pitch for an entirely new venture, Fritz.But Jameson’s quick pivot didn’t stop him from quickly raising $2 million for Fritz. In fact, Jameson thinks his experience with Wherehouse, and the small but dedicated team he built there, helped him raise money for his new startup.On an episode of the “How I Raised It” podcast, I asked Jameson to share a few insights into what led him to pivot and how he was able to secure funding for two consecutive companies without getting his wires crossed.So what is Fritz, and why did you start this company?Fritz helps developers put machine learning or artificial intelligence models into their mobile apps. We’re seeing all of (...)

If you’ve taken an Uber lately, odds are you’ve seen one of those containers displaying assorted goods for purchase — gum, candy, cell phone accessories — in between the two front seats.Cargo, the #startup behind this “in-car commerce platform,” says it has worked with more than 12,000 rideshare drivers to sell $2.4 million worth of merchandise over the last two years.Founder Jeff Cripe came up with the idea back in 2015. Since then, he quit his job, got accepted into #techstars and raised more than $6 million from investors. He broke down how he did it from the angel round and beyond when I spoke with him on the How I Raised It podcast. An edited version of that conversation appears below.How did you come up with the idea for Cargo?I think like a retailer. So when I looked at how big Uber and Lyft (...)

“Cross-platform” is a loaded termTouchlab is a mobile innovation consultancy with #kotlin Multiplatform expertise.This is the 1st post in a 2 post series.Post 2: “The Future of Cross-Platform is Native” by Touchlab Director of Project Strategy, Justin Mancinelli.If you’re interested in learning more, we’re hosting a Kotlin Multiplatform webinar on Thursday, March 28th, 1–2 PM EST. You can register here.In the application development world, you hear the term cross-platform all the time. The idea of “write once, run anywhere” is like an unreachable promised land for management stakeholders, and an unrealistic and frustrating reality for developers.At Touchlab, we don’t use the term cross-platform. We prefer “multiplatform” — for a couple of important reasons.BaggageFirst, cross-platform has a lot of (...)

So in keeping with my mission to help people buy homes, I put together this little list on what you need to know if you’re an entrepreneur who wants to buy a home.The ability to qualify for a mortgage is based on 3 things: your income, your assets and your credit.2. You make your money when you buy the house, not when you sell.3. You need to be in business for at least 2 consecutive years, and your income is averaged over the last 2 years to qualify. So you need to have 2 years of positive income. The average of the two years net profit is what the bank thinks you make.4. Your credit should be at least a 620 if you want to get a mortgage in today’s lending environment. Though you can possibly get a mortgage with a lower score, 620 is the ideal minimum standard.5. You can get the seller to (...)

Behind every successful business is a solid strategy. Every year, companies invest collective hundreds of millions of dollars in professionals who they hope would give them the best strategies for their businesses. They do this because they know that in the predominantly capitalist society of today, brands that don’t compete well die off fast.For Sean Lourdes, a business that starts out without a solid blueprint reduces its chances of thriving in the markets to near zero. In his words “Launching a business without drafting an effective strategy for its survival is similar to going to battle with a fierce enemy without defining techniques for assault”. And Sean is not alone. In the book “The Art of the Deal”, real estate billionaire and United States president, Donald Trump, gave insights on (...)

Photo Credit: PixabayIt’s not surprising that more people are leaving the 9–5 routine behind to pursue their passion. A team of researchers revealed that 70% of professionals work remotely at least once a week. What started as a hobby for many college students later became a full-fledged business venture.Anyone can work remotely thanks to the internet and the latest technological tools. You don’t have to pay for office rent or waste time commuting to an office. Despite this, staying motivated and productive can be nearly impossible.The path to becoming a successful home-based entrepreneur is lonely and daunting. It will be difficult to get yourself out of the bed most mornings to work towards your goals.These tips will come in handy regardless of the stage you are in your entrepreneurial (...)

What does it take to get a new product off the ground?What’s the story behind the zebra?What does it take to get your product off the ground? I’ve illustrated the core of every successful business. It happens to be a person riding a zebra. What?The story behind the artwork has more meaning than one could initially extract. The artwork describes how new ideas are created, refined, and brought to market. So, let’s begin with the illustration breakdown…1. LightbulbEach business starts with an idea. Great breakthrough is often told as a lightbulb moment because there is a certain narrative thrill in the story. The switch in your head flips, and the light is on. The idea is born. Despite popular belief, ideas do not just come out of the blue. Before the idea comes to life, there (...)

I spent the past four days at Shoptalk, a retail and e-commerce conference that welcomed nearly 8,500 attendees from around the world. As a venture investor who thinks a lot about the future of retail and how startups can make an impact, I was excited to hear from an amazing roster of industry experts, from CEOs of public companies to data scientists at global retailers.Shoptalk 2019 photo from Daisuke Iizuka on Twitter.As a newcomer to Shoptalk, I thought it would be fun to share some of the things I learned, with a focus on the topics and questions that are top-of-mind for retailers of all sizes today. Here are five of the key initiatives that many retailers seem to be thinking about:Meeting the consumer where they are — outside of a mall!In the age of Amazon, many consumers are no longer (...)

Recently, my mom came for a visit. She read my blog and discovered her son has a crazy habit of running barefoot. After some convincing, she begrudgingly accepted my rationale, especially after I showed her that a nice Jewish professor at Harvard said it’s ok.But on one morning, as I was about to walk out the door, my mom stopped me with a tight grab to the arm reminiscent of my childhood. “It’s bad enough you run outside with bare feet but you look ridiculous running with these cheap shmatte gloves.” She always had an eye for spotting the quality of apparel and she correctly identified my Wal-Mart bargain bin gloves, which I bought for $2 per dozen.“Why are you wearing these things?” she exclaimed. “You must be cold! Let me get you a nice pair of warmer gloves. You’re cold, right? Is that the (...)

Credit: For EntrepreneursEven a product that solves world hunger needs marketing. No matter how grand or revolutionary your business idea is, burning out is a real possibility if you don’t have the necessary understanding of how your product will fit, survive and grow in its market.In other words, having that great product is only part of the equation to entrepreneurial success. There’s lots of vital research and understanding that must also be a factor.The product-market fit is an essential dimension of this research. It helps a business understand how healthy the market it is and to what degree their product or service will satisfy the needs of that market.Unfortunately, as necessary as this element is, particularly for lean startups, it often goes undefined. This can cause businesses to (...)

Women as Entrepreneurs — A Changing ClimateThe entrepreneurial road to business success is never easy. But one way to make the path to entrepreneurial success even more challenging is simply to be born female. Female entrepreneurs face challenges that their male counterparts have never even considered.However, in spite of incredible odds against them, females are making amazing headway into the entrepreneurial arena. On this journey, they are being helped by new and creative initiatives designed to connect these businesses with those who can best help them succeed.Shaky StatisticsSome of the ways women are “getting ahead” in business look like positives on the surface, but in reality are not as great as they sound. For example, the US Department of Education’s finding that college attendance (...)

One argument I hear in favor of big $$$ fundraising is that it will help in recruiting. It’s a logical enough belief but mistaken. It assumes there’s a linear relationship between the amount of funding raised and caliber of recruits.It’s absolutely true that the top 10 startups at any point in time can have their pick of talent. I doubt many execs or star engineers would turn down a chance to talk about a key role at Stripe, Airbnb, etc. However, only a handful of companies have this luxury.One way to think about fundraising is that it provides a series of keys that unlock access to different talent pools and amount is non-linear value:🔑 Key 1: The first few million dollars are a signal to skeptical potential employees that your small #startup has been “blessed” by a trusted 3rd party. (...)

How to build a spaceship — my wild voyage discovering the one person company.I’m twenty-one. It feels like forever ago. I’m not all that different from most aspiring entrepreneurs. I want to build a spaceship. A big shiny one, like Elon Musk’s.My obsession began in college, while I was attending the University of Southern Indiana. I had just read Ashlee Vance’s masterful book, Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX and the Quest for a Fantastic Future.It’s a lovely tale. It’s hugely captivating like Star Trek. Yet, in some very odd way, it feels within reach.Vance’s great #writing makes the idea of building electric cars that can zip from 0 to 60 mph at the blink of an eye and spaceships that can deliver massive payloads to outer-space… achievable.It’s a dangerous combination. In fact, I’d go as far as arguing (...)

I was always a restless, creative type. Sitting down absorbing information with no practical or creative outlet has never really been my style. I like to learn and put into practice at the same time. I learn faster, and am much more interested in what I’m doing if I can actually try it out for myself.I was pretty bored in high school, as I usually found myself ahead of most of the class and it was mostly rote learning anyway. So when a friend introduced me to smoking weed at around the age of 14, I quickly took a liking to it as it alleviated a lot of the boredom I was experiencing at the time.We were living in the countryside, and the same friend brought me over some marijuana seeds one day. I very quickly took up a passion for horticulture, and seeing as we lived on a big property, my (...)